Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/326

296 year there appeared a volume entitled The Forest of Fancy by H. C., which has been attributed to Henry Chettle, but may with far more probability be assigned to Constable. This is a black-letter romance in prose and verse, of some slight literary value. Until 1592 we lose sight of the poet altogether, but in that year appeared his principal work, the book of sonnets called Diana. The only sonnets in the Italian form which had preceded them were those of Sidney, printed the year before, and as Constable had been writing those poems for many years he deserves credit as being one of the first to introduce this elegant form of verse among us. His sonnets are not merely quatorzains, like Shakespeare s ; he preserves the exact arrangement of rhymes, except that he usually closes with a couplet. So popular was Diana that in 1594 a second enlarged edition appeared. But all this time a cloud was gathering round the poet. As a Catholic and a pronounced admirer of the queen of Scots, he came under suspicion of plotting treason against Elizabeth. Almost immediately after ushering Sir Philip Sidney s Apology for Poetry into the world with four magnificent sonnets, in 1595, he was obliged, in October of that year, to fly for his life to France. After a short stay in Paris, he wintered at Rouen, and then set off on a long pilgrimage to Rome, Poland, the Low Countries, and Scotland. In 1600 we find him still an exile, this time in Spain. About the year 1601 he could endure the growing home-sickness no longer, and returned to England in disguise. He was discovered at once and committed to the Tower, where he languished until 1604, when he was released. Of the date of his death we know no more than can be gathered from the fact that he is spoken of as alive in 1606, and as apparently not long dead in 1616. Besides the Diana he was the author of four important poems which were printed in the 1600 edition of England s Helicon. Two of these, the exquisite lyric of &quot; Diaphenia like the Daffadowndilly,&quot; and the charming pastoral song of Venus and Adonis, hold a prominent place in our early literature, the latter especially being believed to precede Shakespeare s epic in date of composition. Some very fine Spiritual Sonnets of Constable have been printed in our ov/n day, and it is understood that certain compositions of this &quot; ambrosiac muse,&quot; as Ben Jonson styled it, are still awaiting an editor. The style of Constable is fervid and full of colour, Mr Minto has well said that his words flow with happiest impulse &quot; when his whole being is aglow with the rapture of beauty.&quot;  CONSTABLE, (1776-1837), landscape painter, was born at East Bergholt, in the Stour valley, Suffolk, June 11, 1776. Under the guidance of a certain John Dunthune, a plumber, he acquired in early life some insight into the first principles of landscape art, together with a habit of studying in the open air that was after wards of much service to him. His father, who was a yeoman farmer, did not care to encourage this tendency, and set him to work in one of his windmills. The in cessant watchfulness of the weather which this occupation required laid the foundation of that wonderful knowledge of atmospheric changes and effects of which his works give evidence. From an introduction to Sir George Beaumont, an amiable man but a poor painter, he became acquainted with the works of Claude and Girtin. In 1795 he was sent to London with a letter to Farington, the landscape painter. Farington encouraged him with predictions of coming eminence ; and for two years he plodded on, draw ing cottages, studying anatomy, and copying and painting, sometimes in London and sometimes in Suffolk. His progress, however, was not encouraging; and in 1797 he returned home, and for some time worked in his father s counting-house. In 1799 he again went to London to perfect himself as a painter ; and on the 4th of February he was admitted a student of the Royal Academy. The lights and shadows of his studies from the antique at this period are praised by Leslie, but they were sometimes defective in outline. He worked from dawn till dusk, and was an untiring copyist of such masters as he had sympathy with, as Wilson, Ruysdael, and Claude. Drawings from nature made during the next year or two, in Suffolk or in Derbyshire, were of no great promise. Being naturally slow, he was yet groping blindly for something not to be found for many years. In 1802 he attended Brookes s anatomical lectures, exhibited his first picture, and, refusing a drawing mastership offered him by Dr Fisher, gave him self wholly to his vocation. He exhibited a number of paintings during the next eight years, but it was not till 1811 that he gave to the world, in his Dedham Vale, the first work in which his distinctive manner and excellences are evident, In 1816, having inherited .4000 on his father s death, he emerged from a painful state of poverty with which he had been struggling, and married. In 1818 he exhibited four of his finest works ; and next year he sent to Somerset House the largest picture he had yet painted, the landscape known as Constable s White Horse. In the November following he was made associate of the Academy. His power at this time, though unrecognized, was at its highest. In 1823, however, after the exhibition of such masterpieces as the Stratford Mill, the Hay Cart, and the Salisbury Cathedral, he did not disdain to copy two Claudes. In 1 824 two of his larger pictures, which he sold, were taken to Paris, and created there a profound sensation. Allowing a great deal for the influence of Bonington, who died four years afterwards, much of the best in contem porary French landscape may be said to date from them. Constable received a gold medal from Charles X., and his pictures were honourably hung in the Louvre. In 1825, he painted his Loch (&quot;silvery, windy, delicious&quot; is his own description of it), and sent his White Horse to Lille for exhibition. It made, like the others, a great impression, and procured the painter a second gold medal. Other great works followed; and in 1829 he was elected Academician, to the astonishment and ill-concealed dis pleasure of many, and began to devote himself, in con junction with Lucas, to the preparation of his book of English Landscape Scenery. Hard work brought on ill- health and low spirits ; rheumatism laid hold of him, and for some time he could neither write nor paint. In 1832, however, he exhibited his Waterloo Bridge (painted, said his enemies, with Lis palette-knife only), with three other pictures and four drawings. In 1834 he painted his Salis bury from the Meadows, more generally known as the Rainbow, a picture he valued greatly; and in 1836 he delivered a course of lectures on his art at the Royal Institution. He died suddenly on the 1st of April 1837, leaving his Arundel Castle and Mill wet on his easel. The principles on which this great painter worked are not far to seek. He himself has said, &quot; Ideal art in landscape is all nonsense ; &quot; and this sentence may be said to sum up the whole of his theory and practice of painting. Turner s pictures to him were merely &quot; golden dreams ; &quot; Both and Berghem were only fit for burning; if he proclaimed the greatness of Claude and Titian, it was that he recognized their truth. Truth in its broadest and finest sense was his only aim. He studied the country untiringly and intently, sacrificing mere detail to the larger necessities of tone (&quot; tone is the most seductive and inviting quality a picture can possess &quot;), reproducing to an eminent degree the sentiment of what he saw, flooding his canvas with light and shadows as one finds them, and faithfully translating such glimpses as were revealed to him of the geniality of nature. His range was limited ; he sue- 